By Kumkum Chadha Quite contrary to her name, Swara, which means striking a musical note and in one sense symbolizes a melody, Bollywood’s Swara Bhasker was perhaps doing just the opposite: striking a discordant note for moralists and the self-righteous. At one level, she was questioning patriarchal mindsets; at another telling the world to be…
By Kenneth Tiven On the morning of September 11, 2001, the world watched in disbelief as the World Trade Center towers in New York City collapsed after terrorists crashed two hijacked airliners into the landmarks. Nearly 3,000 people were killed. America—and the world—would never be quite the same again. The United States had not experienced…
By Sujit Bhar A recent judgment of the Bombay High Court, dealing with the apparently narrow question of missing original title documents deposited with a bank as security for a loan, carries a significance far beyond the individual dispute. On the face of it, the matter may appear trifling: a borrower repaid a loan, did…
By Dr Swati Jindal Garg “Violence against women is perhaps the most shameful human rights violation. And it is perhaps the most pervasive. It knows no boundaries of geography, culture or wealth.” —Kofi Annan Acid does not merely burn flesh; it dissolves dreams, melts identities and leaves behind a lifelong trail of psychological and physical…
By Annunthra Rangan On August 31, 2026, a five-member Court of Arbitration sitting under the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague delivered a unanimous award declaring that the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty remains fully in force and that India continues to be bound by its obligations under the agreement. The tribunal also imposed limited…
By Sanjay Raman Sinha Held in the run-up to the 18th BRICS Summit under India’s rotating chairmanship, the BRICS Chief Justices’ Forum 2026 was landmark in more ways than one. As judicial head of the host country, Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant used the occasion not merely to discuss judicial cooperation among member-states,…
July 20, 2026, may eventually find a place in the constitutional memory of India—not merely as the date of a student protest, but as a moment to which future debates about citizens’ rights, State action, judicial process and constitutional propriety may return. The photographs and videos of students protesting that day in the national capital…
By Basava Prabhu S. Patil Whenever there is any discussion about good governance. Lawyers speak of legality. Administrators speak of policy and implementation. Communication professionals speak of public perception. But the citizen, quite understandably, is interested in something much simpler: Was I treated fairly? That, in many ways, is where public trust in governance begins. The expression…
Chief Justice of India Surya Kant has called for a fundamental recalibration of India’s arbitration ecosystem, urging arbitral institutions and practitioners to develop a credible architecture of self-regulation rather than await the operationalisation of a statutory regulator. Addressing the India ADR Week 2026 organised by the Mumbai Centre for International Arbitration (MCIA) at The Imperial,…
The Supreme Court on Thursday questioned the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) over its proposed front-of-pack warning label framework for packaged foods, particularly asking why ultra-processed foods should be treated on the same footing as other packaged products. A Bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice K Vinod Chandran were hearing a…